Part 6

There's your letter completely answered! Not as you were good enough to ask, with "gold for bronze," but tit for tat. Oh, but here is another little note, which I will not leave unanswered. Lucceius, on my word, could get a good price for his Tusculan property, unless, perchance, his flute-player is a fixture (for that's his way), and I should like to know in what condition it is. Our friend Lentulus, I hear, has advertised everything for sale except his Tusculan property. I should like to see these men cleared of their embarrassments, Cestius also, and you may add Caelius, to all of whom the line applies,

"Ashamed to shrink and yet afraid to take."

I suppose you have heard of Curio's plan for recalling Memmius. Of the debt due from Egnatius of Sidicinum I am not without some hope, though it is a feeble one. Pinarius, whom you recommended to me, is seriously ill, and is being very carefully looked after by Deiotarus. So there's the answer to your note also.

Pray talk to me on paper as frequently as possible while I am at Laodicea, where I shall be up to the 15th of May: and when you reach Athens at any rate send me letter-carriers, for by that time we shall know about the business in the city and the arrangements as to the provinces, the settlement of all which has been fixed for March.

But look here! Have you yet wrung out of Caesar by the agency of Herodes the fifty Attic talents? In that matter you have, I hear, roused great wrath on the part of Pompey. For he thinks that you have snapped up money rightly his, and that Caesar will be no less lavish in his building at the Nemus Diame.

I was told all this by P. Vedius, a hare-brained fellow enough, but yet an intimate friend of Pompey's. This Vedius came to meet me with two chariots, and a carriage and horses, and a sedan, and a large suite of servants, for which last, if Curio has carried his law, he will have to pay a toll of a hundred sestertii apiece. There was also in a chariot a dog-headed baboon, as well as some wild asses. I never saw a more extravagant fool. But the cream of the whole is this. He stayed at Laodicea with Pompeius Vindullus. There he deposited his properties when coming to see me. Meanwhile Vindullus dies, and his property is supposed to revert to Pompeius Magnus. Gaius Vennonius comes to Vindullus's house: when, while putting a seal on all goods, he conies across the baggage of Vedius. In this are found five small portrait busts of married ladies, among which is one of the wife of your friend--" brute," indeed, to be intimate with such a fellow! and of the wife of Lepidus-- as easy-going as his name to take this so calmly! I wanted you to know these historiettes by the way; for we have both a pretty taste in gossip. There is one other thing I should like you to turn over in your mind. I am told that Appius is building a propyheum at Eleusis. Should I be foolishly vain if I also built one at the Academy? "I think so," you will say. Well, then, write and tell me that that is your opinion. For myself, I am deeply attached to Athens itself. I would like some memorial of myself to exist. I loathe sham inscriptions on statues really representing other people. But settle it as you please, and be kind enough to inform me on what day the Roman mysteries fall, and how you have passed the winter. Take care of your health. Dated the 765th day since the battle of Leuctra!

M. PORCIUS CATO TO CICERO (IN CILICIA)

ROME (JUNE)

I GLADLY obey the call of the state and of our friendship, in rejoicing that your virtue, integrity, and energy, already known at home in a most important crisis, when you were a civilian, should be maintained abroad with the same painstaking care now that you have military command. Therefore what I could conscientiously do in setting forth in laudatory terms that the province had been defended by your wisdom; that the kingdom of Ariobarzanes, as well as the king, himself, had been preserved; and that the feelings of the allies had been won back to loyalty to our empire--that I have done by speech and vote. That a thanksgiving was decreed I am glad, if you prefer our thanking the gods rather than giving you the credit for a success which has been in no respect left to chance, but has been secured for the Republic by your own eminent prudence and self-control. But if you think a thanksgiving to be a presumption in favour of a triumph, and therefore prefer fortune having the credit rather than yourself, let me remind you that a triumph does not always follow a thanksgiving; and that it is an honour much more brilliant than a triumph for the senate to declare its opinion, that a province has been retained rather by the uprightness and mildness of its governor, than by the strength of an army or the favour of heaven: and that is what I meant to express by my vote. And I write this to you at greater length than I usually do write, because I wish above all things that you should think of mc as taking pains to convince you, both that I have wished for you what I believed to be for your highest honour, and am glad that you have got what you preferred to it. Farewell: continue to love me; and by the way you conduct your home-journey, secure to the allies and the Republic the advantages of your integrity and energy.

XXI

To M. PORCLUS CATO (AT ROME)

(ASIA, SEPTEMBER)

"RIGHT glad am I to be praised "--says Hector, I think, in Naevius--" by thee, reverend senior, who hast thyself been praised." For certainly praise is sweet that comes from those who themselves have lived in high repute. For myself, there is nothing I should not consider myself to have attained either by the congratulation contained in your letter, or the testimony borne to me in your senatorial speech: and it was at once the highest compliment and the greatest gratification to me, that you willingly conceded to friendship, what you transparently conceded to truth. And if, I don't say all, but if many were Catos in our state--in which it is a matter of wonder that there is even one--what triumphal chariot or laurel should I have compared with praise from you? For in regard to my feelings, and in view of the ideal honesty and subtihity of your judgment, nothing can be more complimentary than the speech of yours, which has been copied for me by my friends. But the reason of my wish, for I will not call it desire, I have explained to you in a former letter. And even if it does not appear to you to be entirely sufficient, it at any rate leads to this conclusion--not that the honour is one to excite excessive desire, but yet is one which, if offered by the senate, ought certainly not to be rejected. Now I hope that that House, considering the labours I have undergone on behalf of the state, will not think me undeserving of an honour, especially one that has become a matter of usage. And if this turns out to be so, all I ask of you is that--to use your own most friendly words-- since you have paid me what in your judgment is the highest compliment, you will still "be glad" if I have the good fortune to get what I myself have preferred. For I perceive that you have acted, felt, and written in this sense: and the facts themselves shew that the compliment paid me of a supplicatio was agreeable to you, since your name appears on the decree: for decrees of the senate of this nature are, I am aware, usually drawn out by the warmest friends of the man concerned in the honour. I should, I hope, soon see you, and may it be in a better state of political affairs than my fears forebode!

XXII

TO TRO (AT PATRAE)

BRUNDISIUM, 26 NOVEMBER.

CICERO and his son greet Tiro warmly. We parted from you, as you know, on the 2nd of November. We arrived at Leucas on the 6th of November, on the 7th at Actium. There we were detained till the 8th by a storm. Thence on the 9th we arrived at Corcyra after a charming voyage. At Corcyra we were detained by bad weather till the 15th. On the 16th we continued our voyage to Cassiope, a harbor of Corcyra, a distance of 120 stades. There we were detaine4 by winds until the 22nd. Many of those who in this interval impatiently attempted the crossing suffered shipwreck. On the 22nd, after dinner, we weighed anchor. Thence with a very gentle south wind and a clear sky, in the coarse of that night and the next day we arrived in high spirits on Italian soil at Hydrus, and with the same wind next day--that is, the 24th of November--at io o'clock in the morning we reached Brundisium, and exactly at the same time as ourselves Terentia (who values you very highly) made her entrance into the town. On the 26th, at Brundisium, a slave of Cn. Plancius at length delivered to me the ardently expected letter from you, dated the 13th of November. It greatly lightened my anxiety: would that it had entirely removed it! However, the physician Asclapo positively asserts that you will shortly be well. What need is there for me at this time of day to exhort you to take every means to re-establish your health? I know your good sense, temperate habits, and affection for me: I am sure you will do everything you can to join me as soon as possible. But though I wish this, I would not have you hurry yourself in any way. I could have wished you had shirked Lyso's concert, for fear of incurring a fourth fit of your seven-day fever. But since you have preferred to consuit your politeness rather than your health, be careful for the future. I have sent orders to Curius for a douceur to be given to the physician, and that he should advance you whatever you want, engaging to pay the money to any agent he may name. I am leaving a horse and mule for you at Brundisium.

At Rome I fear that the 1st of January will be the beginning of serious disturbances. I shall take a moderate line in all respects. It only remains to beg and entreat you not to set sail rashly--seamen are wont to hurry things for their own profit: be cautious, my dear Tiro: you have a wide and difficult sea before you. If you can, start with Mescinius; he is usually cautious about a sea passage: if not, travel with some man of rank, whose position may give him influence over the ship-owner. If you take every precaution in this matter and present yourself to us safe and sound, I shall want nothing more of you. Good-bye, again and again, dear Tiro! I am writing with the greatest earnestness about you to the physician, to Curius, and to Lyso. Good-bye, and God bless you.

XXIII

To L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES)

TUSCULUM (JULY)

I WAS charmed with your letter, in which, first of all, what I loved was the tenderness which prompted you to write, in alarm lest Silius should by his news have caused me any anxiety. About this news, not only had you written to me before--in fact twice, one letter being a duplicate of the other--shewing me clearly that you were upset, but I also had answered you in full detail, in order that I might, as far as such a business and such a crisis admitted, free you from your anxiety, or at any rate alleviate it. But since you shew in your last also how anxious you are about that matter-- make up your mind to this, my dear Paetus: that whatever could possibly be accomplished by art--for it is not enough nowadays to contend with mere prudence, a sort of system must be elaborated-- however, whatever could be done or effected towards winning and securing the goodwill of those men I have done, and not, I think, in vain. For I receive such attentions, such politenesses from all Caesar's favourites as make me believe myself beloved by them. For, though genuine love is not easily distinguished from feigned, unless some crisis occurs of a kind to test faithful affection by its danger, as gold in the fire, there are other indications of a general nature. But I only employ one proof to convince me that I am loved from the heart and in sincerity--namely, that my fortune and theirs is of such a kind as to preclude any motive on their part for pretending. In regard, again, to the man who now possesses all power, I see no reason for my being alarmed: except the fact that, once depart from law, everything is uncertain; and that nothing can be guaranteed as to the future which depends on another man's will, not to say caprice. Be that as it may, personally his feelings have in no respect been wounded by me. For in that particular point I have exhibited the greatest self-control. For, as in old times I used to reckon that to speak without reserve was a privilege of mine, since to my exertions the existence of liberty in the state was owing, so, now that that is lost, I think it is my duty to say nothing calculated to offend either his wishes or those of his favourites. But if I want to avoid the credit of certain keen or witty epigrams, I must entirely abjure a reputation for genius, which I would not refuse to do, if I could. But after all Caesar himself has a very keen critical faculty, and, just as your cousin Servius--whom I consider to have been a most accomplished man of letters--had no difficulty in saying: "This verse is not Plautus's, this is--" because he had acquired a sensitive ear by dint of classifying the various styles of poets and habitual reading, so I am told that Caesar, having now completed his volumes of bons mots, if anything is brought to him as mine, which is not so, habitually rejects it. This he now does all the more, because his intimates are in my company almost every day. Now in the course of our discursive talk many remarks are let fall, which perhaps at the time of my making them seem to them wanting neither in literary flavour nor in piquancy. These are conveyed to him along with the other news of the day: for so he himself directed. Thus it comes about that if he is told of anything besides about me, he considers that he ought not to listen to it. Wherefore I have no need of your DEnomaus, though your quotation of Accius's verses was very much on the spot. But what is this jealousy, or what have I now of which anyone can be jealous? But suppose the worst. I find that the philosophers, who alone in my view grasp the true nature of virtue, hold that the wise man does not pledge himself against anything except doing wrong; and of this I consider myself clear in two ways, first in that my veiws were most absolutely correct; and second because, when I found that we had not sufficient material force to maintain them, I was against a trial of strength with the stronger party. Therefore, so far as the duty of a good citizen is concerned, I am certainly not open to reproach. What remains is that I should not say or do anything foolish or rash against the men in power: that too, I think, is the part of the wise man. As to the rest--what this or that man may say that I said, or the light in which he views it, or the amount of good faith with which those who continually seek me out and pay me attention may be acting--for these things I cannot be responsible. The result is that I console myself with the consciousness of my uprightness in the past and my moderation in the present, and apply that simile of Accius's not to jealousy, but to fortune, which I hold--as being inconstant and frail--ought to be beaten back by a strong and manly soul, as a wave is by a rock. For, considering that Greek history is full of examples of how the wisest men endured tyrannies either at Athens or Syracuse, when, though their countries were enslaved, they themselves in a certain sense remained free--am I to believe that I cannot so maintain my position as not to hurt anyone's feelings and yet not blast my own character?

I now come to your jests, since as an afterpiece to Accius's DEnomaus, you have brought on the stage, not, as was his wont, an Atellan play, but, according to the present fashion, a mime. What's all this about a pilot-fish, a denarius, and a dish of salt fish and cheese? In my old easy-going days I put up with that sort of thing: but times are changed. Hirthms and Dolabella are my pupils in rhetoric, but my masters in the art of dining. For I think you must have heard, if you really get all news, that their practice is to declaim at my house, and mine to dine at theirs. Now it is no use your making an affidavit of insolvency to me: for when you had some property, petty profits used to keep you a little too close to business; but as things are now, seeing that you are losing money so cheerfully, all you have to do, when entertaining me, is to regard yourself as accepting a "composition"; and even that loss is less annoying when it comes from a friend than from a debtor. Yet, after all, I don't require dinners superfluous in quantity: only let what there is be first-rate in quality and recherche. I remember you used to tell me stories of Phamea's dinner. Let yours be earlier, but in other respects like that. But if you persist in bringing me back to a dinner like your mother's, I should put up with that also. For I should like to see the man who had the face to put on the table for me what you describe, or even a polypus--looking as red as Iupiter Miniatus. Believe me, you won't dare. Before I arrive the fame of my new magnificence will reach you: and you will be awestruck at it. Yet it is no use building any hope on your hors d'aeuvre. I have quite abolished that: for in old times I found my appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian sausages. But why all this talk? Let me only get to you. By all means--for I wish to wipe away all fear from your heart--go back to your old cheese-and-sardine dish. The only expense I shall cause you will be that you will have to have the bath heated. All the rest according to my regular habits. What I have just been saying was all a joke.

As to Selicius's villa, you have managed the business carefully and written most wittily. So I think I won't buy. For there is enough salt and not enough savour.

XXIV

To L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES)

TUSCULUM (JULY)

BEING quite at leisure in my Tusculan villa, because I had sent my pupils to meet him, that they might at the same time present me in as favourable a light as possible to their friend, I received your most delightful letter, from which I learnt that you approved my idea of having begun--now that legal proceedings are abolished aiid my old supremacy in the forum is lost--to keep a kind of school, just as Dionysius, when expelled from Syracuse, is said to have opened a school at Corinth. In short, I too am delighted with the idea, for I secure many advantages. First and foremost, I am strengthening my position in view of the present crisis, and that is of primary importance at this time. How much that amounts to I don't know: I only see that as at present advised I prefer no one's policy to this, unless, of course, it had been better to have died. In one's own bed, I confess it might have been, but that did not occur: and as to the field of battle, I was not there. The rest indeed-- Pompey, your friend Lentulus, Afranius--perished ingloriously. But, it may be said, Cato died a noble death. Well, that at any rate is in our power when we will: let us only do our best to prevent its being as necessary to us as it was to him. That is what I am doing. So that is the first thing I had to say. The next is this: I am improving, in the first place in health, which I had lost from giving up all exercise of my lungs. In the second place, my oratorical faculty, such as it was, would have completely dried up, had I not gone back to these exercises. The last thing I have to say, which I rather think you will consider most important of all, is this: I have now demolished more peacocks than you have young pigeons! You there revel in Haterian law-sauce, I here in Hirtian hot-sauce. Come then, if you are half a man, and learn from me the maxims which you seek: yet it is a case of "a pig teaching Minerva." But it will be my business to see to that: as for you, if you can't find purchasers for your foreclosures and so fill your pot with denaril, back you must come to Rome. It is better to die of indigestion here, than of starvation there. I see you have lost money: I hope these friends of yours have done the same. You are a ruined man if you don't look out. You may possibly get to Rome on the only mule that you say you have left, since you have eaten up your pack horse. Your seat in the school, as second master, will be next to mine: the honour of a cushion will come by-and-by.